


Ready or Not

by Charis



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bahrain, Gen, Headcanon, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 02:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1051683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charis/pseuds/Charis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To younger agents, Bahrain is the last time the Cavalry rode forth. To Melinda May, it's the point she swore she was never going back into the field.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ready or Not

She's working late again. It's become part of her habit, because the office is oddly peaceful at this hour, and because she always keeps going until the rush hour traffic has died down. In early, home late, and no one asks questions because she's a good employee, but she's sure they wonder. She's sure some of her younger and more imaginative coworkers have dreamed up insane stories to explain why the legendary Cavalry (and when did she become a legend, anyway?) is working in a Level Three office. She's even more sure none of them could handle the truth, because legends aren't made to be broken, and she is -- so broken that even now she avoids the press of people and the noise of rush hour because she isn't sure she can handle it without reacting badly.

It's quiet here, and she's good at her job, and no one asks questions even if she knows they want to. She likes that. She has a routine, and if things are safe and sane and boring, it's a small price to pay for not living constantly on edge.

She likes it here, and that's why she's instantly suspicious when Director Fury breaches the quiet of her after-hours workspace. There's no reason for him to come down here except if he wants something, and there's no one here to ask except for her.

Her eyes flick up to meet his, barest acknowledgement, before focussing on her screen again. He approaches, though, stops just inside the pool of light around her desk, studies her intently until she has to look up.

"Agent May."

"Director."

There's something in his face she doesn't quite know how to read, something she'd say on a lesser person was exhaustion, maybe a sense of being overwhelmed. But this is Nick Fury, and the trials of lesser men don't dare go near him. "I need the Cavalry to ride one last time," he says -- no preamble, no beating around the bush, just pure Fury bravado, and it takes all of her hard-won self-control not to gape. Though really, she shouldn't be surprised; he's never been the sort not to use everything at his disposal.

~ * ~

She wants to say no, but you don't tell Nick Fury no (never mind that she has, before, more than once after the hell that was Culiacán). He'd explained, briefly, why it had to be her, and she'd never been very good at denying things when people truly needed her -- and maybe, on some level, she's missed the rush of fieldwork. You can't do it for years without becoming a little bit of an adrenaline junkie. And maybe after four years she can handle it again ...

That's how she winds up in the jump seat of a plane, parachute at hand, in tac gear that feels strange and familiar all at once. The weight of the weapons is familiar too, but even as her body tightens in anticipation of landing, the nerves wind tight as well. She doesn't have the space or the time to centre herself properly, so she retreats into herself instead, focuses on breathing, slow and steady, in and out.

_Ready or not,_ she thinks, as she tightens the straps on her chute and they open the door, _here I come._

And then free-fall.

~ * ~

She manages, but it takes everything she is to hold herself in emotional check. _Shut it down_ has become her new mantra, as she locks every speck of emotion and reaction away and promises herself a good private breakdown when she gets home. The prison is the worst, memories threatening to overwhelm her even as she takes out guards left and right, but she manages that too, gets the surviving agents to the retrieval point. That helps, a little; at least this time there are people still alive. One of them, a skinny boy she remembers vaguely from trainings years ago, clutches the bag of Hydra tech to his chest for the entire three days of their escape, and has to be coaxed to release it when they get back to the nearest SHIELD base. The look in his eyes -- in all of their eyes -- is far too familiar; she sees it in the mirror every morning.

And then they look at her in wonder and gratitude, and where she should feel the surge of pride and pleasure, she can only feel exhausted relief and a deep sorrow -- the one for what she managed, the other for the corpses they'd burned as they left, the agents that will never come home. 

Before they've even reached HQ, she's realised she can't do this again. The Cavalry may have had the highest percentage of successful extraction missions even in dire circumstances, but Melinda May remembers the cost of her failure and knows that there's always someone better. Today was a fluke. Let someone else take up the mantle, if it means she doesn't have to live with another failure -- because she knows herself, and she knows one more would break her, and that's why she's sitting in a jump seat trying to centre herself enough to still her trembling hands.

_Panic attacks are normal after a traumatic incident,_ the S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologist she'd been ordered to had after Culiacán said. _Give it time,_ and she has, but not enough, and maybe it'll never be enough. All she wants is to go back to her office where it's safe and quiet and things are under her control, to go back to paper and forget about adrenaline rushes and smiles of relief and the bodies of those she couldn't get to in time. It's someone else's turn.

When the papers to request a return to active duty turn up in her inbox afterwards -- a not-so-subtle hint -- she dumps them in the shredder and sends the Director an email, just one word. No. She won't -- can't. Bahrain just confirmed that.

The next day she puts in for a week's leave. When it's approved, she locks herself in her apartment and turns off her phone and begins to rebuild herself again. Muffled in a cocoon of normalcy, she can pretend once again that things are fine.

And then New York falls apart, and a dead man appears where Fury had stood months before and tells her he needs her to come back into the field with him. "Just to drive the bus," Phil says, with that awkward smile she remembers well, but he's always been a terrible liar and they both know he's not even really trying.

After all, they both know she's going to say yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I looked up Bahrain and didn't find any significant conflicts S.H.I.E.L.D. might have framed an op into before the Arab Spring, and that didn't fit my headcanon timelines. And I like my headcanon too much to rewrite it. XD;;
> 
> I am still The Worst Ever with titles. Thanks to partner in crime D for supplying me with one.


End file.
